When the renovations to the double A are complete, the main feature of the grand entrance will be a monument to one of Wyoming’s most prominent athletes.
“We’re going to have a statue of Kenny Sailors shooting the jump-shot in Madison Square Garden,” Says Tom Burman, UW athletics director. He says Sailors is remembered by fans for leading his team in 1943 to a national championship in New York City. But Sailors’ influence extends beyond UW to backyard hoops and professional arenas around the world. Why? Because Kenny Sailors is credited with revolutionizing basketball through his use of the jump shot.
“A jump-shot is a shot that a player takes, usually off-motion,” explains John Christgau is the author of “The Origins of the Jump Shot: Eight Men that Shook the World.” “He stops on a dime, leaps straight up, hangs for a micro-second, and then releases the shot with one hand.”
Christgau acknowledges that naming a single inventor of the jump shot is hard. But it is Sailors who is best known for incorporating this shot into the strict choreography of basketball. He says, “There were a couple of cardinal rules, but the most important one that Kenny Sailors defied, was that you always stay on the floor – you never leap into the air.”
Sailors’ innovation came out of necessity. Growing up on a ranch in Hillsdale, Wyoming, Sailors developed the jump shot in 1934 while playing against his brother in the back yard. Sailors’ older brother was six-foot-five. Sailors was only five-foot-six at the time. A talented high-jumper, Sailors used his athleticism and ingenuity. He lifted himself into the air while shooting, avoiding the coverage of his much taller brother. And thus, the jump shot was born.
I think those fans will be reminded when they come to the double A, that what Kenny Sailors gave to basketball, that magical jump-shot, is really the great equalizer in high-school, college, and professional basketball.
But, Christgau says, it was not well-received. “The first time his coaches saw it, they said, ‘What in the hell are you trying to do, Kenny? You can’t get off the floor!’ He had defied tradition and it was a little crazy for him to do so. But he stuck with it.”
Coaches soon saw the value. At UW, Sailors was a three-time all-American. He won the College Basketball Player of the Year award twice. After college, he went pro in the Basketball Association of America – the predecessor to the NBA. And at the end of his career, Christgau says there was no doubt about the mark Sailors’ left on the game. “This was something new and revolutionary. For him to do things on a basketball court that little men in those days couldn’t normally do… that’s why he’s become a legendary figure in my mind in basketball.”
In Wyoming Men’s basketball Coach Larry Shyatt’s office, an iconic photo of Sailors hangs on the wall. Sailors is mid-air, releasing a jump shot at the ’43 national championship in Madison Square Garden. Shyatt’s busy making his last-minute preparations for the men’s basketball season, but he pauses for a moment, looking forward to the completion of the Arena Auditorium and the statue honoring Sailors. “I think those fans will be reminded when they come to the double A, that what Kenny Sailors gave to basketball, that magical jump-shot, is really the great equalizer in high-school, college, and professional basketball.”
Sailors is now 93. He still makes it to the double A as often as he can for Cowboy basketball games and practices. When the renovation is complete and the statue revealed in 2016, Sailors presence in the double A will be as timeless as his contribution to the sport of basketball.
